CROSSES VIOLATE RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY

More than six months on and the Marine Corps remain in hiding from responsibilities to address the unauthorized Christian shrine at Camp Pendleton. Two 13-foot Christian crosses stand on restricted federal land as a result of unauthorized actions by private individuals. These crosses, symbols of Christianity recognizable at a glance the world over, are religious symbols at their core. Marines have been forced to engage in Christian pilgrimages to pray and even emplace one of the crosses. All of this speaks to a Marine-led Christianization of the military that Marine leaders must step in to resolve.

The Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers put a spotlight on this issue last Veterans Day, reporting on Christian shrines in the Mojave Desert, Mount Soledad, Flathead National Forest, Utah highways, and in King, N.C., where some Christians are seeking to impose their religious symbols onto government land. These tactics are used by some Christians to seek an end goal of Christian nationalism. Crosses and other religious messages can be found at churches, private property, roadside billboards, television shows and ads and other nongovernmental locations. The government also properly provides for optional chapel services on military installations, religious markers on military grave sites, the allowance for personal Bibles and prayer activities. These private or personal religious activities are appropriate freedoms that should be protected. But the crosses at Camp Pendleton are on federal land and represent the federal government and so violate the government’s mandate to maintain neutrality toward religion.

The Marine Corps has a simple solution that can both honor fallen Marines and honor the Constitution. The two crosses should be removed to private property. A church or front yard would be more than appropriate and could appropriately honor those Marines in a Christian fashion. Should funds be available, the Marines may place an eagle, globe and anchor, obelisk, wall of names, U.S. flag or other military or patriotic symbol. Individuals already place personal objects and could continue to place crosses, Bibles, Korans, Buddhist prayer flags, rocks, dog tags, or other symbols of personal significance (so long as the items are temporary and of appropriate size). In this way, the military has placed an appropriate memorial that privileges no private beliefs but also provides no sanction against truly personal expressions of belief.

Some have claimed that the cross isn’t Christian, but I will leave it to the Christians to object to that blasphemy. Some have claimed that the cross has historical significance. Certainly it does, but that heritage is Christian first and foremost. Some have claimed the cross is a “universal symbol of death.” But it is only a Christian symbol of death with no place in Jewish, secular or other non-Christian expressions of grief. Some have claimed that the crosses may stay because they are removed from public view, but they are placed in a common training area for Marines and have been used specifically as a focus for training and prayer. Some have claimed that those who object are disconnected private citizens, but the truth is that the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers represents Marines, Marines at Camp Pendleton, Marines currently deployed overseas from Camp Pendleton, and other active duty and retired military personnel all over the world, in all branches of service, and living veterans of every conflict since World War II. We hold great concern for our fallen comrades and the rights they gave their lives to protect. It is precisely because of our respect that we stand up to defend the Constitution against those who would subvert it for religious purposes.

The truth is that those Christians who posted the crosses may have had good intentions, but that does not trump the Constitution. Neither does some notion of squatter’s rights. It is unfortunate that those crosses must be removed, but that, at a minimum, is what the Constitution calls for.

The Marines must make the hard decisions necessary to undo the religious firestorm created by those private citizens and commanders who have used these crosses to impose Christianity through the federal government and the Marines. Marine leadership have waited more than six months since the Veterans Day installation of a second cross and Marine commanders spent 10 years overlooking the original cross violation. Christian nation theologians are powerful and organized, but in this, the Marines must stand firm to defend the Constitution for all citizens without privilege to one religious belief.

Torpy is president of the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers, MAAFTH.